Chapter 2: A Loyal Forbidden City Awaits the Supreme Emperor

"This slave Tu Wenfu, bearing the Empress's decree, respectfully welcomes His Highness Prince Xin into the palace."

Zhu Youjian's heart stirred; he keenly detected a subtle nuance in those words.

Into the palace — not into the palace to mourn.

Was this deliberate, or an unguarded remark?

No matter. Probing now was meaningless. When the tide recedes, the reefs will naturally reveal where they stand.

He inclined his head slightly and said in a hoarse voice, "I am obliged to you, Eunuch Tu."

"Your Highness, restrain your grief," Tu Wenfu said, stepping aside to clear the path, his posture exceedingly deferential. "The sedan chair is ready. Please, Your Highness, proceed."

Zhu Youjian nodded and mounted the sedan chair.

The chair started forward slowly, gliding smoothly toward the imperial city.

Leaning back against the cushioned seat, Zhu Youjian carefully sorted through his thoughts.

As the Chongzhen Emperor, seizing the throne and consolidating power was not difficult at all.

The Tianqi Emperor's testamentary edict and oral decree were both in place, and together with that widely circulated phrase in the capital — "My younger brother can be a Yao or a Shun" — his legal claim to the succession had been pushed to its absolute maximum.

As for physically eliminating him — though he had been cautious before entering the palace, that was only to guard against the unlikeliest of contingencies.

Poison, assassination, outside troops — no matter the method.

If Zhu Youjian were to die, Wei Zhongxian would immediately face three enormous problems.

First, he would have to kill or imprison his imperial sister-in-law Zhang Yan as well, to prevent any recurrence of the "hidden decree in a girdle" affair.

Second, he would need the prestige to convince the eunuch faction — a cluster that had barely coalesced over three years — to follow him down a path of near-certain death, especially given that he was already sixty years old this year and, moreover, a eunuch.

Third, even if he managed the first two, he would still have to win the Jingnan campaign launched by the caretaker administration in Nanjing and the various princes of the blood across the realm...

If Wei Zhongxian truly possessed such ability and prestige, he would not have, in actual history, perished and seen his clan exterminated within a mere two months.

Yet he, Zhu Youjian, had still taken every measure to minimize the unexpected.

On the macro scale, the tide of the age follows materialist historical laws — it does not persist for a Yao, nor perish for a Jie.

But on the micro scale, the epic of a single hero can, time and again, shift the course of history.

Chai Rong, Emperor Shizong of Later Zhou, set forth the grand ambition: "In ten years, expand the realm; in ten years, nurture the people; in ten years, bring lasting peace." He campaigned east and west, yet just as he was about to recover Yan and Yun, he suddenly fell ill and died.

Had it not been so, how would those two Zhao brothers ever have had their turn?

Would a Chai Rong, vested with such profound authority, have adopted the extreme strategy of "exalting the civil and suppressing the martial" that the Northern Song took?

Would a Han dynasty, brimming with martial vigor and in full possession of Yan and Yun, have been able to halt the ravages of the Mongol Yuan?

Stories that never came to pass — no one can know.

And so, no matter what, he would place his own safety first.

Staying alive was the number-one priority for a fragile ADC like himself.

As these thoughts flashed through his mind, the sedan chair gave a slight jolt and came to a stop.

"Your Highness, we have reached the palace gate."

Tu Wenfu's voice sounded from outside the chair.

Zhu Youjian adjusted his robes and headpiece, drew a deep breath, pushed open the chair door, and stepped out.

Twilight had by now enveloped the entire capital. The guards had long since lit and hung lanterns, their glow making the three characters "Donghua Gate" gleam like flowing gold.

"Your Highness, riding conveyances is forbidden within the palace. You must proceed on foot," Tu Wenfu said, bowing.

Zhu Youjian nodded, his gaze sweeping over the night guards stationed before the gate.

He did not step forward immediately. Instead, he first pressed his left hand against the hilt of the sword at his waist, and only then did he stride forward.

It was an exceedingly minute gesture, yet one deliberately made conspicuous.

The eyes of several night guards were drawn to it at once, pausing for an instant on Zhu Youjian's sword-hand.

They exchanged hurried glances, then looked away as if nothing had happened, pretending they had seen nothing at all.

Seeing this, Zhu Youjian felt even more assured.

The sword he had hastily donned before leaving his residence had already fulfilled its purpose perfectly.

By Ming regulation, anyone entering the palace must relinquish their weapons.

Only two exceptions existed: the night guards on duty, and His Majesty the Emperor himself.

That these guards turned a blind eye could only mean they already regarded him as the supreme sovereign.

Excellent. It seemed this was a loyal Forbidden City.

And he, Zhu Youjian... would very soon become the master of this deep palace.

At that very moment, inside Qianqing Palace, chaos reigned.

A mourning hall had been hastily erected, and the Tianqi Emperor's coffin rested there in state.

Wang Tiqian, seal-holder of the Directorate of Ceremonial, was methodically directing the eunuchs in arranging the mourning hall and assigning the ministers of the Six Ministries their respective duties for the funeral rites.

Yet Wei Zhongxian, the Nine Thousand Years whose power overshadowed the entire court, now stood stupefied in the hall as if his soul had fled, his eyes red and swollen, utterly silent.

His mind was a tangled mess; he was completely at a loss.

What was he to do now? He could not truly rebel like that ignorant woman Madam Ke, could he?

How could anyone possibly follow an old, castrated wretch of sixty like himself in such a monumental undertaking?!

His eyes swept the room, and he noticed that those fawning faces of the past were now keeping their distance. His heart grew even colder.

Having arranged all matters and seeing that the ministers of the Six Ministries had received their orders and withdrawn, Wang Tiqian walked over to Wei Zhongxian and said flatly, "Restrain your grief, Director."

Wei Zhongxian seemed not to hear, still staring blankly at the cold coffin.

Only after a long while did he appear to come back to himself. In a hoarse voice, he said, "Summon Cui Chengxiu back. Have him meet me in the side hall."

The moment Cui Chengxiu, Minister of War, entered the hall, he felt the suffocating, oppressive atmosphere.

"All of you, leave us," Wei Zhongxian said with a wave of his hand.

When only the two of them remained inside the hall, the braced-up front Wei Zhongxian had been maintaining finally collapsed.

He seized Cui Chengxiu by the sleeve, a tremor in his voice: "Shaohua, tell me — what is this slave to do now?"

Cui Chengxiu sighed inwardly. The thing he had dreaded most had come to pass after all.

This Nine Thousand Years, who had turned the court upside down at will, once stripped of the Emperor's protection, was so utterly fragile.

But what could he do? They were grasshoppers tied to the same string — there was no running away.

"Eunuch, do not panic," Cui Chengxiu said, steadying him. His voice was low and firm. "The urgent task now is that we must not, under any circumstances, throw ourselves into disarray. What we must do now is stabilize the situation and quietly observe how things develop."

"Quietly observe? How can we quietly observe!" Wei Zhongxian's voice shot up sharply. "That Prince Xin… Prince Xin, he…"

"On Prince Xin's side, we must send someone to sound him out." Cui Chengxiu lowered his voice. "Xu Yingyuan, the Chief Steward of the Prince Xin Residence — this man, I recall, is an old acquaintance of yours, Eunuch. I wonder if contact might be possible."

A glimmer of light finally appeared in Wei Zhongxian's clouded eyes.

"Yes, Xu Yingyuan…" he muttered to himself, then, as though seizing a life-saving straw, "This slave will have Yongzhen handle it at once. Give him fifty thousand taels! No — a hundred thousand! So long as he is willing to speak for us!"

"In urgent times, one adapts to circumstance. A trifling sum of gold and silver, if it can buy peace of mind, is well spent." Cui Chengxiu nodded. "Let him go first to test the waters, to gauge the new sovereign's attitude. If… if the matter truly cannot be salvaged, Eunuch, you should still make preparations early. Retire and return to your native village — it may not be without the precedent of Zhang Yong."

"What Zhang Yong?" Wei Zhongxian looked utterly blank.

Cui Chengxiu was anxious at heart, yet he reined in his temper and carefully explained: "Zhang Yong was a great eunuch of the Zhengde reign, one of the Eight Tigers alongside Liu Jin. After the Jiajing Emperor ascended the throne, he was impeached and dismissed, but later reinstated as seal-holder of the Imperial Household Directorate."

Wei Zhongxian reacted as though he had found a life-saving straw. "Good… good, good. Retiring is good!"

Cui Chengxiu cupped his hands in helpless salute, bowed, and withdrew.

After Cui Chengxiu left, Wei Zhongxian forcibly rallied his spirits and returned to where the deliberations were being held.

By now, the Grand Secretariat ministers and the eunuchs were locked in heated argument over the new sovereign's residence.

The eunuchs' position was to follow the precedent set under the Shenzong and Guangzong emperors: temporarily place the Tianqi Emperor's coffin in Qianqing Palace and request that Prince Xin lodge for the time being in the side halls of the palace.

"That is unacceptable!" Huang Liji, the Chief Grand Secretary, immediately voiced his opposition. "An elder brother succeeded by a younger brother is not the same as a father dying and a son inheriting! When the Shizong Emperor entered to succeed to the great line as a princely heir, he resided precisely in Wenhua Hall. This is the established law of our ancestors — how can it be lightly altered!"

The Grand Secretariat ministers echoed him one after another, their words fierce.

Wei Zhongxian sat to one side, his spirit utterly absent, deaf to the argument before him.

The quarrel did not last long. Wang Tiqian simply conceded the point and adopted the Grand Secretariat ministers' opinion.

"Then let it be as the Chief Grand Secretary proposes. The imperial coffin shall be placed in a separate hall. Tomorrow, Prince Xin will move to Wenhua Hall, but tonight, let him rest briefly in a side hall of Qianqing Palace first. Her Majesty the Empress shall move to Ciqing Palace."

Empress Zhang Yan, her eyes red and swollen, listened in silence from the side. She raised no objection, gave a slight curtsy, and withdrew amid a cluster of palace attendants.

No sooner had she departed than a young eunuch rushed in hurriedly, knelt, and reported:

"Reporting to the Old Ancestor, His Highness Prince Xin… has arrived at the palace gate."